How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I have lived these caves for fifty years. I have lived them when no one cared but the damp and the dark. And now you come here telling me how to be and how to die. I'll not leave. I'll not go to any hospital. (17.1)
Here we see that Mr. Skinner has found freedom in the cave. He's free because he's independent. He's found some kinship with the environment of the cave. But, it's also been very lonely. When Mayhew and the Smalls show they care, but respect his wishes, he begins to trust again, and he has more than "the damp and the dark" to rely on.
Quote #8
[…] he began to feel as though he were a slave hiding and running. Somewhere in the back of his mind was emptiness and fear; loneliness, the way a desperate slave would feel. (18.30)
Waiting in the dark for the Darrows, Mr. Small identifies with the plight of the runaway slaves who had once hid in the same place. Of course, those people were in infinitely more dangerous and desperate situations. What he experiences is a tiny fraction of what a person running from slavery would.